In order to prevent marine pollution, the International Ballast Water Management Convention has been in force since 2004 by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Accordingly, ballast water treatment equipment needs to be installed in all managed ships by 2020. Therefore, a number of researches are conducted on a method and an apparatus for treating ballast water in various countries such as Korea, U.S.A, Europe, Japan, and the like, and a lot of treatment methods such as filters, cavitation, ozone sterilization, chlorine sterilization, centrifugation, absence of oxygen, ultraviolet rays sterilization, and the like have been introduced.
In addition, in the shipbuilding industries in Korea, ballast water, which complies with the IMO convention, is produced by electrochemically sterilizing the ballast water, and Korean Patent Nos. 10-0542895 and 10-0840762 disclose a ballast water treatment apparatus using electrolysis.
However, the technology in the related art may cause an explosion due to hydrogen and oxygen produced when seawater is electrolyzed. In addition, HClO, which is included in the sterilized ballast water, is neutralized and then discharged to the outside, that is, the sea, and as a result, there is a problem in that the discharged HClO may disturb or destroy an ecosystem. Therefore, the ballast water treatment system in the related art is required to be investigated because of problems associated with the environment and safety.
Particularly, in a case in which an electrolysis device is sealed during an electrolysis process due to carelessness of an operator or a control error, oxygen gas and hydrogen gas, which are consistently produced, may cause an accident on a ship, and as a result, there is an urgent need for development of a process for solving the above problem.